Pradip Datta was a consultant general surgeon at Caithness General Hospital and a noted surgical trainer. He was born in Calcutta, India on 14 May 1940 and studied medicine at the University of Andhra, qualifying in 1964. In 1967 he went to the UK for further training. He was a registrar in general surgery at Poole General Hospital, a registrar in surgery at the Royal Cornwall Hospital and a senior registrar at Whittington Hospital, London. He was subsequently appointed as a consultant surgeon in Wick, retiring in 2005. He was a fellow of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh, England, Ireland and Glasgow, and was a tutor and member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He was well-known for his training; his training courses, both in the UK and abroad, had an extremely high pass rate. He wrote textbooks and chapters in books, including *MCQs and EMQs in surgery: a Bailey & Love revision guide* (second edition, CRC Press, 2015), and was also a visiting lecturer at the Universiti Sains Malaysia and the National University of Singapore. He was awarded an MBE in 2008 for his services to surgical training. Outside medicine, he enjoyed squash and held the squash championship in Caithness for many years and was a keen angler. Despite having a stroke in 2017, he wrote his memoirs *The naked mountain lands* (Doctors Academy Publications, 2021), which describe his 38 years working in the NHS. Datta died on 19 March 2022 at the age of 81. Predeceased by his wife Swati, he was survived by a son, Sandip.